Today, I would like to explore who is in charge of this God business we have been discussing.  This topic can be boiled down to a single word – authority.  Who has the authority to call the shots?  And on what basis do they have this authority?  And over what do they have authority?   These are critical issues that have bedeviled the early church and bedevil us to this day.

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Fundamentalist Christians assert that God is in charge.  They further claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and the means by which God’s authority is exercised in the world.  Apparently, they haven’t read their Bibles very well, because they haven’t addressed or explained the many places where Scripture appears to contradict itself.  

Essentially, this is a lazy answer to the question of authority.  Rather than wrestle with the genuine questions of authority, their answer is to simply “believe.”  This response has led to a dependence on the transcendent view of God and typically denies the loving-kindness of the imminent God.

Of course, fundamentalists are not alone in adhering to the transcendent view.  Christians of all stripes – the Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, various Protestant denominations, and the evangelicals – emphasize, at times exclusively, this transcendent view.  This is a profound theological error with a host of negative consequences!

Can you have “up” without “down?”  Can you have “left” without “right?”  To play with words a little, can you have “right” without “wrong?”  Of course not!  Within the phenomenal, dualistic world, things come to us in pairs.  We cannot accurately speak of one half of the equation without considering the other.  And this is what the Church has done since its inception.  It has only looked at half of the truth.

It is correct to say that God is in charge.  The error arises when the only view of God is that of the transcendent God.  In this view, God created the world and humanity and left us to our own devices.  We will be judged by this God after we die, and, depending on the number of brownie points we have accumulated, this will determine where we will spend eternity.

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The Gospel of Thomas and, to a lesser extent, the Gospel of John, present a very different view of authority.  Here God is not separated into transcendent and immanent parts.  Instead of the dualism inherent in the phenomenal world, these gospels assert that Reality is whole; that humanity is a constituent part of the larger Reality and cannot be fundamentally separated from it.

In this view, our ignorance is the fundamental problem.  We are ignorant of the Divine within us, and we are ignorant of the divine context in which we live and move.  We don’t realize that our essential being is part of the Divine Being.

Take a moment and reflect on that last sentence.  It means that God dwells within you and within each one of us.  Once we realize this, all external forms of authority simply collapse.  The ultimate authority already exists within us, so there is no need for any external authority.  That said, we are sadly ignorant of this Truth within ourselves.

From this perspective, our task as spiritual beings is to overcome our ignorance.  There is no Original Sin that condemns us.  Our God does not condemn us.  Jesus, Krishna, and the Buddha do not condemn us.  Instead, they invite us to learn from them; they invite us to overcome our ignorant beliefs; and they invite us to experience the fullness of our being, which just so happens to be the fullness of the Divine.

Once you understand and experience this fullness, no external authority has power over you.  No external authority can rightly tell you what to do.  No external authority can tell you what is ethical and what is not.  In this view, inner transformation precedes ethics.

Please note that this does not mean that ethics and morality are unimportant or unnecessary.  Countless millennia of human experience tell us that our morality is very important.  Without it, our social order collapses.  But the question to ask is, “For whom is morality important?”  Once again, let’s turn to the person of Jesus and the record of his actions.

Let’s look at Jesus’s actions with the man born blind, described in John 9.1-41.  Here, Jesus restores the sight of a man born blind, but the Pharisees excoriate him for doing so on the Sabbath.  Because healing is considered to be work, and work, according to Jewish law, is forbidden on the Sabbath, clearly Jesus was in error and could not be a prophet of God.  (The viciousness of this application of the law never ceases to astound me!  Can you imagine denying the healing of a blind man because it happened on the wrong day?)

Jesus here is acting from the deepest morality – the morality of love and the recognition that we are all connected, that we are all part of one another and God.  Having experienced this inner transformation – that his being is an intimate part of the Father’s being – Jesus knew that there was a deeper morality than that expressed in the Jewish law.  His inner transformation resulted in a profound deepening in his moral behavior.

Incidents of this nature are recorded again and again in the Gospels.  Jesus touches lepers, consorts with tax collectors, and allows a bleeding woman to touch him.  He allows his disciples to pick and eat grain on the Sabbath.  Over and over again, he is reprioritizing the Law, stating that human need triumphs over ritual restrictions.  Again and again, he prioritizes loving one another over everything else.

This is both the most profound morality and the most difficult to implement.  But remember, it is only difficult for those of us who still walk in ignorance.  For those who have learned their true nature as part of the Divine, this is just normal behavior.  It is unremarkable.

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So, let’s go back to the institutions of the Church, the ones that tell us what we should do and what we should not do.  For one who has realized her true nature, there is no need for an institutional authority.  Authority flows naturally from within because you are already aware of the mind of God.  You know what God wants from you.  You are fully prepared to act in accordance with the will of God.

For a person such as this, the Church's authority is both unnecessary and superfluous.

So how might the exercise of this kind of authority look in the world in which we live?  I had breakfast this morning with a priest friend, Father Mark.  He described to me how the Ethiopian Orthodox Church chooses their bishops.  All the bishops get together and discuss who would be the best candidate, that is, who best exemplifies the spiritual teachings of Jesus.  These discussions continue until a consensus of the three best candidates is reached.  Each name is written on a slip of paper, placed in a chalice, and prayed over.  Then the youngest bishop blindly chooses one of the three slips of paper and reveals the name of the man who will be consecrated.

Contrast this with how the bishops in my own church, the Episcopal Church, are chosen.  Or contrast it with the selection of a new pope.  In both cases, political factions within these churches put forward their own candidates and agendas, and battle back and forth.  After considerable political wrangling, a new primate is chosen.  It is rare for a candidate to be chosen for their spiritual depth.  Almost universally, the choice is a political one based on considerations that often have little to do with spiritual development or God.

The contrast between these two methods is stunning, isn’t it?  In the case of the Ethiopian church, the focus is on spiritual qualifications, and the blind drawing provides an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to make the actual choice.  In the case of the two Western churches, the focus is on political alliances and agendas.  With the Ethiopian church, there is room for the Holy Spirit to guide the choice.  With the Western churches, it is the political Pooh-Bahs rather than God who do the choosing.

The contrast couldn’t be clearer.  So ask yourself this: who would you prefer to have calling the shots?  A bunch of political hacks or the Holy Spirit?

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Well, I suspect I have said enough in this newsletter to get an angry letter from my bishop and possible charges levied against me for heresy.  Oh well, maybe Jesus will love me anyway.

In the meantime, please remember that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.  Take some time to let go of your thinking, to let go of all the busyness in your life, and just BE.  The promise is this:  when we find our own being, we enter into the Being of God, and, in the process, we realize that the Kingdom is truly within us.

Rest in the loving embrace of our Lord!  Let his loving-kindness bring you to your deepest fulfillment!

P.S.  These newsletters were written in a particular order, but due to the limitations of our email delivery system, we cannot send them in the order in which they were written.  We can send out the first five in order, but then the system sends out the next one, whatever that happens to be.

So, if you are suddenly moving from issue #5 to issue #whatever, it might be a little jarring.  If this sounds like you, I would encourage you to go back into our archives and do your best to read them in order. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

To access the other newsletter editions of the “Inside The Invisible Newsletter,” or if you’d like to read ahead or go back.

Please Note: These newsletters are meant to be read in order.